Walkabout
by Texcatlipoka
Summary: A series of oneshots about Nullah's time with king George on walkabout- a time which, for any aborigine, is even more an inward journey than it is an outward one.
1. Fireside

**These are oneshots that came into my mind completely spontaneously whilst freewriting, mostly as development for my other Australia fic. So updating on this fic will be sporadic, if at all: it all depends if more ideas strike me. **

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Nullah was playing with the fire.

Every now and then he would throw in a little stick, and sit silently, watching the flames wrap around it. Then, quick as a scorpion, his hand would snap out and nip the twig away. As long as he was fast, he could avoid being burnt. But his mind was elsewhere, and he grew gradually more distant, until suddenly his fingers missed the twig, and his hand was in the fire a second too long. He yelped, shattering the night's relative silence, and put the burn to his mouth, sucking it gently.

King George watched him and knew the reason for his distractedness. "You are missing Faraway Downs," he said softly.

Nullah nodded.

"And The Drover too, eh, and Lady Ashley?"

Nullah nodded again. His face was down, staring into the flames; Gulipa watched the fire turn his hair to gold, and ochre, and back again.

"You should not worry," he said, leaning back against the earth, "they will all be there when you return. You will have many happy years together."

Nullah smiled thinly. "You're right, _Gulipa_."

"Come here," said King George, gesturing. "I will tell you a story of my ancestors."

A little reassured, Nullah came round the fire and sat with his head on _Gulipa's_ right shoulder. _Gulipa_ put a parental arm around him, welcoming the warmth of another human body in the cold wildness of the outback, which he had for so long now inhabited alone. Nullah finally turned his eyes up, and King George gazed back comfortingly.

Then he launched into the telling of the story of Koopoo, the first Kangaroo, who gifted their people with their sacred rituals, and the white paint they used to decorate themselves, and how he had finally fled from the attack of a ferocious dingo, and become a Rainbow Snake. He paused often, speaking slowly and steadily with a powerful, influencing style perfected over years of practice, in much the same way as his father had- and his father before, all the way back as far, perhaps, as Koopoo himself. The influence and meaning imbued by such a style was such that as he finished, Nullah could remember the beginning almost as exactly as he had just heard the end.

For some while they sat in silence, Nullah absorbing the tale and rolling it over in his mind. But King George could still see that his thoughts wandered.

"What's life like for you, _Gulipa_?" asked Nullah suddenly, "I mean in Arnhem land?"

King George was a little taken aback, but he answered anyway: "Mostly it is the same. Same sky, same land. Same stars at night. The only real difference is that my family are close there, whereas my grandson is far away. But life, you see, does not change with your position in the world. Life can only change from the inside out."

By now he had figured out the reason for Nullah's question. By degrees his voice took on a tone of fatherly authority- it was not harsh, but it commanded attention.

"You ask me this," he began, "because you yourself worry; worry about tomorrow, and the day after. But as a people we do not worry, Nullah, and that you should learn. Tomorrow is no concern, for it will be the same. People change, but the land never does."

"Yet you realise, now you are absent, that we cannot live forever. You see that your life at Faraway downs will someday end, and so also will those of your parents. You worry what will become of you."

The fire had burned down. Rising, King George climbed onto a boulder behind them; in the receding light cast by their fire he was a giant silhouette, a ghostly ancestor, jet-black on a velvet sky.

"You wonder where to go… but look here, and see that you have already arrived!" He cast his arms out, and raised as he was above the seated Nullah, his arm span seemed to embrace the whole vast horizon.

"I can offer you only this, and that means everything around us now. Look on the land- it is not yours, but it is given you to roam, if you choose."

He climbed down from the boulder. Nullah watched him reverently, but the impact of King George's words, and the decision they entailed, showed in his sad eyes. King George continued more softly:

"You are a special boy, my grandson. You have a talent I could never have gained, and that is the ability to understand two lives at once. I cannot understand the white people. I do not blame myself for this, it is simply the way I have become. And equally I know they do not understand me. But you have seen both of them; and loved both of them, no less. And in that sense you are both fully our people, and fully theirs."

Reaching out, he rested a hand against Nullah's chest, over his heart. "You have been given the great gift of deciding which life you will have for yourself. It is for this heart, under my palm, to discover which life it finds most beautiful. And once your heart knows, you must let no man sway you. You understand?"

Nullah, who had been silent throughout, now sat straight up and hugged his mentor tightly.

"Thank-you, _Gulipa_!" He choked a little, but in his eyes he was reassured. "I feel better now… and I feel I know already where I belong. Would you like me to tell you?"

"No, child," King George told him. "It is not for me to know, nor anyone. It is for you. It is your story."

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	2. Paintings

**Disclaimer: I don't own Australia. **

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When February comes, and the parched north-western wind rushes down on the outback, signalling the beginning of the dry season, the sun is suddenly hot with an intensity unimaginable to foreigners. Its ferocious rays cause the rocks to sear, and raise shimmering waves of heat from the scorched earth. The land becomes a steaming grill of inhospitality, and even a native never grows fully accustomed to its power.

So it was also with Nullah, who winced at the temperature of the rocks under his feet. Straining his eyes, he could just see over the rocks into the valley beyond, but with the sun before him in the sky only the rough outlines of raw angles, and the sweeping contours of the bare stone, were visible.

Presently King George came up beside him, sweating from the climb and the heat; but unlike Nullah, his sinewy body showed no sign of fatigue. Long ago had he mastered such a sensation. He no longer listened to the pleas of his body. His gait was controlled, his stride balanced, his gaze assured. When he walked he was like a river, when he stood he was like a tree- the separation between man and nature was lost in him, and together they seemed like one entity. In short, King George was a veteran of the outback; a master of its secrets in a way Nullah could not hope to be for countless years, emulate him even as he did.

They took shelter in from the noonday sun under the shade of the rocks, where it was cooler. They rested and slept for a while, and ate when the feeling took them. Then, when the sun was half hidden by the mountains in the west, King George took up a piece of cloth from a pouch at his waist.

"Time to wear this, _Gulipa_," he said.

"For the paintings?"

"Yes."

King George bent over the kneeling Nullah and tied the cloth over his eyes. "One day you will see," he said softly. "But today is too early."

There was a rough path down the mountain to be followed. When the ground was especially steep or rugged King George picked up Nullah and carried him, but mostly the path was gentle enough for the initiate to feel the way with his feet, with only a guiding hand to keep him off the edge. To their left, the valley swept away below them, bloody in the evening sun, showing sharp steep faces of rock everywhere. On many of these were painted the vivid blues, whites, reds and blacks that made up the leering images of the trickster gods, easily discernible even at their distance.

"You tread on the sacred ground of our ancestors," said King George as they walked. "Sacred ground, where creation happened again and again. You are blind now, but cherish still that you feel sacred soil beneath your feet-"

They were at the base. King George took his mentor to one of the paintings and guided his hand over the outline of one of the paintings. "-and touch sacred ochre with your fingertips."

Now he took Nullah to another painting, the largest and greatest of all. Here he squatted down his pupil, and guided his fingers over the ground, which was only finely dusted with dirt.

"There is a sign here," said Nullah slowly, "but I don't recognise it. What does it mean? Whose _mana_ is it?"

"It is mine," said King George proudly. "Mine. Mine from many summers and winters ago, when I was barely past where you are now. I trod these same steps that you just trod, and the same that you will tread- as did my teacher, and his also, back through every eon, every generation, until Taku, the first man, himself. In the same way, when we return her, your eyes will be opened to these sacred pictures, and your _mana_ will be inscribed here beside mine. Your second soul will live in this land forever."

Nullah was delighted in a way he had never imagined. The cool evening receded, and a feeling of cradling warmth surrounded him, and he felt in his heart the comforting voices of one thousand ancestors, all around him. His shoulders shook, and he began to cry gently.

Raising him up, King George took the initiate's hand and led him from the valley.

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	3. Reality

**This will probably be the final chapter in this… trio, I guess. I feel like it makes a good conclusion. Tell me what you think! Also, remember that as much as possible I tried to base the plots of these three stories on very ambiguous topics, so that the story could apply to any native aborigine. So bear in mind that all the stories and beliefs discussed by King George are real Aborigine tales from Arnhem Land.**

**Disclaimer: Still own nothing. As ever.**

They had been travelling two months. Two long, simple months, powerful in their simplicity- they were now so far inland that the red land was unbroken and all-encompassing. Nullah finally understood a fraction of its might. To wander the land, seemingly without aim or direction, and meet not a living soul along the way, ever, for two months… that, it seemed, was the land's strange privilege. It had the power to engulf its inhabitants, to separate them, almost as though it were a purposeful action. You would find other people only when the land permitted it- nothing and nobody was beyond its authority.

Yet the land permitted strange things. On the third morning of the second month Nullah was awoken by the sound of gunshots. In the distance they could see two figures, mounted, carrying rifles, firing with wanton abandon, as if in open challenge to the land's authority. Occasionally they would shoot a kangaroo, or some other animal, but they never dismounted. They hunted for sport.

"Why do they kill them?" asked Nullah, to which King George sighed, looking distantly into the sky. "Some people," he said, "don't need a reason."

The pair pressed on. For four days they made steady progress over the semi-arid land. The heat was by this time of year intense almost all the time, and even water seemed scarce relief. In the morning they chewed on insects, more for the water content than the nutrients, and in the evenings they ate whatever small creatures they could catch.

But whatever they did, they no longer did alone, for the two mounted riders were always behind them, drawing steadily closer day by day. At one time King George took Nullah on a detour, down treacherous rugged sloped of earth, then following a tiny stream upwards. Nullah slipped and scraped his arm, leaving his blood on the red earth; it blended perfectly, becoming food for flies, and was soon lost.

The mounted riders did not disappear, but stuck close, confirming King George's suspicions that they were following them. Nullah didn't know what to say to that. The whole situation was strangely surreal. Two men, suddenly appearing on the horizon, followed them, ceaselessly and implacably, firing their guns into whatever came near, spilling blood, cracking the silence with the cold metal of their guns. It seemed miraculous that the land tolerated them.

Then, on the fifth day, they cleared a parched valley, and stopped to look down on a sea of crimson. The base of the valley pulsated in the heat with the fierce colour of thousands of little red flowers, with vivid red petals, centred on a black centre.

"These are the Flowers of Blood," said King George to Nullah. As he looked upon them his face fell into a gaze of both reverence and regret. "They grow only in the place where innocent tribespeople once fell to violence. There was a great battle here in the past- a great massacre. You see, Nullah, we have been killing each other long before the white men came to this land- and we will go on with it once they are gone, just as they will go on killing one another. It seems man has killed so many that even the land has been changed. Now the coal-black centre of the flower will stare at him in reproach forever more."

And with that they made their way down into the valley, heads hung and tight-lipped, under the thousand black eyes of the Flowers of Blood.

That night there was no sign of the white men with the rifles. Nullah thought they had gone, but King George thought on other matters. "Right now," he told Nullah, "we are surrounded by the souls of the dead. There is no escape from anything here. Be careful what you say, and what you think."

Nullah was silent. Hours later, when the night had set in, and the temperature plummeted, King George stood. Nullah opened his eyes from a feigned sleep; surrounded by the red flowers, there was no relaxing.

"You're going to kill them," he said quietly.

"Yes. That is right."

"Why?"

"Because they will do the same to us if we wait." He replied. "They want out blood, our fear, our dying pleas."

"Why do they want these things?"

"As I said; some people need no reason."

And with that King George hefted his spear and left. Dawn approached, while Nullah waited in fearful silence, listening, watching. A sudden crack of gunfire rolled across the landscape, followed by another. Then there was silence.

When the sun was just over the distant horizon, King George returned. Nullah cried out in delight and rushed to meet him. But when he got close he saw that King George's blood was dripping on the little flowers beneath, blinding the coal-black eyes; and his face was grey and shiny with sweat. There were bullet wounds in his shoulder and hip. He staggered a few steps and into Nullah's arms, who lowered him to the ground. There he lay, shaking and groaning. With tears in his eyes Nullah sat back on his haunches with King George's blood on him. The heat was becoming ever more intense as dawn broke; yet there was a chilling hand around his heart.

"Are you going to die?" he sobbed.

King George groaned and spoke. His voice was a raspy whisper, and Nullah bent forward to hear him:

"God… that is what those white men called me. Oh God, oh God, they said, as I plunged the spear home. Oh God no, they said." He smiled. "They called me God, yet here I am. This is reality… the land is tired of my living on it, and I will soon be forgotten amongst the nameless fallen. Another of these flowers, perhaps, if I am innocent enough."

Nullah was crying now. He tried to stem the blood flow with his hands, but it escaped between his fingers in thick red petals.

"God…" murmured King George, his eyes glazed, amused by the term, "God. How do the white people do it? How do they believe in a God who is never there for them? How do they see beauty in a being which has gave them such miseries? No; the land is the only beginning and end that man shall ever know."

"But there must be something I can do to help!" Nullah cried. "You can't die; you are _Gulipa_, the magic man... you must survive, somehow!"

"No, no… forget all of that," King George whispered. "This is reality. I die or I don't. Be quiet now, and wait with me… we will see what the night brings."

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**End**


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